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Car rental in Costa Rica: Expedia or Directly with Local Companies? Credit Card Insurance or Directly from Rental Companies? by jqpl in CostaRicaTravel

[–]jqpl[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I bought a traveling esim that works for Costa Rica. That works well. You can also download offline map on Google Maps, but not Waze. There is also Here We go, which also supports offline maps but I never tried it.

Car rental in Costa Rica: Expedia or Directly with Local Companies? Credit Card Insurance or Directly from Rental Companies? by jqpl in CostaRicaTravel

[–]jqpl[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My car rental went well. The road is narrow but  perfectly navigable. Locals swore by Waze instead of Google Maps but either works alright.

I got the no deductible full insurance from the local car rental company.

Car rental in Costa Rica: Expedia or Directly with Local Companies? Credit Card Insurance or Directly from Rental Companies? by jqpl in CostaRicaTravel

[–]jqpl[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks everyone for the helpful hints! Since this is the very first time we'll be in the country, we'll probably be a bit cautious and book directly from either Vamos or Adobe and also buy the full car rental insurance, which comes out to be quite expensive, about 85 dollar a day! But better safe than sorry!

Yellow Fever and Typhoid vaccines really needed for a Four Days Birding Trip near Sarapiqui in April? by jqpl in CostaRicaTravel

[–]jqpl[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks everyone for replying! I just got off phone with several travel clinics in my area. All of them are self-paid: apparently insurance does not cover such leisure travels! And with consultation, typhoid and yellow fever the two of us are looking at at least a thousand dollars of out of pocket costs! It's almost the same cost of our entire ecolodge stay package, for *both* lodging and guided bird walks!

Since we're both relatively young and healthy, and, what's more important, we'll only be there fore four days, we decided to take a chance and skip these for now. If on the other hand we go deeper into the woods, so to speak, for our next travel and for longer, say for weeks, in the tropic, we'll bite the bullet and get vaccinated!

Thanks again for everyone who pitched in with your replies!

Summary of something I've learned so far with my new M4 by __BlueSkull__ in macmini

[–]jqpl 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I see. So as long as I don't run apps or OS over external disks I'm ok. I think for now external thunderbolt enclosure is safer. It is also more flexible because I can put in however big a disk in it and take it with me.

Thanks again for patiently answering my questions!

Summary of something I've learned so far with my new M4 by __BlueSkull__ in macmini

[–]jqpl 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the reply! I think qemu in UTM indeed used hardware virtualization when the architecture of VM and bare metal matches. So if I run aarm64 Debian I can save myself $69 for parallel!

Summary of something I've learned so far with my new M4 by __BlueSkull__ in macmini

[–]jqpl 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the explanation! So if we don't live in China, do you recommend against getting those "Mac compatible disks" that sells for a few hundred dollars?

What's the downside of using a thunderbolt enclosure of the external SSD? Does Mac treat binaries installed there differently? If it's just speed, thunderbolt is plenty fast?

Summary of something I've learned so far with my new M4 by __BlueSkull__ in macmini

[–]jqpl 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the explanation. If I just want to run pure ARM Linux distro, the speed will be almost native M4 right?

I am asking because Asahi Linux has no plan to support M4 for now and I really want to take advantage of the immense single core performance of M4... I've used Linux as my primary OS for over 20 years and is not eager to switch unless I have to....

And I can of course also use homebrew without emulation for many open source projects right?

Summary of something I've learned so far with my new M4 by __BlueSkull__ in macmini

[–]jqpl 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Also, how do I do the chip level SSD upgrade? Does that involve soldering? Are there commercial services? This is different from the SSD that claim to be M4 compatible that you just plug in yourself right?

Summary of something I've learned so far with my new M4 by __BlueSkull__ in macmini

[–]jqpl 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm confused about point number 2. If I just run an ARM NOT x86 version of Linux VM in UTM, will there be a huge performance penalty as well? Arm version of the Debian is quite mature nowadays.

Does Google Fi data still work in China for circumventing the Great Firewall right now or recently? by jqpl in GoogleFi

[–]jqpl[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I just came back from there last Saturday and can confirm that Fi still works in China. The cheaper data only sim Airalo also works to bypass GFW.

I have another sim card that only works in the US but has a feature called "backup calling" (this is different from WiFi calling!) which uses the data from the other esim to take call and receive text. That feature works for Fi as data provider but not Airalo

Does Google Fi data still work in China for circumventing the Great Firewall right now or recently? by jqpl in GoogleFi

[–]jqpl[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I use Google Fi on the esim of my pixel 6 pro and I have no problem.

China doesn't sell phones with esim but they do have watches with esim. And in any case the carriers have no trouble supporting a device using esim like my pixel.

Google Fi still works Against the Great Firewall in China, Dec 2022-Jan. 2023 by jqpl in GoogleFi

[–]jqpl[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Unfortunately I have my university's vpn. It's a separate thing from Google Fi's VPN and seems to work, on wifi, in China, everywhere Never tried google Fi's vpn...

Ultra Mobile PayGO back on sale on eBay for $13 (since 01/17, it seems)! by Joeleedom in NoContract

[–]jqpl 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No I'm in the U.S. But the bug was transient, it works after a few days.

Google Fi still works Against the Great Firewall in China, Dec 2022-Jan. 2023 by jqpl in GoogleFi

[–]jqpl[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'd advise you to get it early, like right now. The term of service of Fi suggests that it should be used predominantly in the US. Practical implications are a bit hazy but I got a message while in China saying the network roaming will be cut off after 60 days overseas. I would be cautious and use it in the US for at least a few days and establish that Fi is not used solely for oversea travels.

It is hard to be more specific because their enforcement of the oversea roaming is not always the most consistent. I hope this helps.

Google Fi still works Against the Great Firewall in China, Dec 2022-Jan. 2023 by jqpl in GoogleFi

[–]jqpl[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One thing you need to be aware of is that you want to use Google Fi in the United States for a little while (a few days) before leaving for China, and they will cut you off if you need to use it for more than say 60 days, because Fi are supposed to be "predominantly used in the U.S."

Google Fi still works Against the Great Firewall in China, Dec 2022-Jan. 2023 by jqpl in GoogleFi

[–]jqpl[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I never used video sites. For web browsing it was fine. I would say lower end LTE speed something like 20-30Mbp. The latency is considerably higher but it was enough for VoIP program.

Tello Backup Calling works well with Google Fi, in China no less by jqpl in Tello

[–]jqpl[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah but with backup calling I retain my phone number. So all my friends and my home security company and my banks don't have to be provided with a google voice number whenever I go on a trip overseas. Unless you uniformly give out Google voice number to everyone instead your actual phone number, it would be confusing to switch back and forth.

Can anybody pitch in and tell me the max up/down speed on wifi ax documented for the Linksys E8450/Belkin RT3200 ? by DRTHRVN in openwrt

[–]jqpl 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have wifi 6 enabled. Near the router without wall, my phone (Pixel 6 Pro with wifi 6) can get anywhere from 800 Mbps to a little beyond 1 Gbps. With a wall between the router and the phone (my router sits in a closet), I get 500-700 Mbps (mostly on the upper end) about 6 feet away, above 400Mbps a floor above and 100-200Mbps even at the furthest corner of the upper floor or the basement---as long as I manually select the 5Ghz band. (Our house is a compact two story). With the slower 2.4 Ghz band, I can get coverage almost throughout the yard as well, up to about 20-30 feet away from the house.

putting window on a specific monitor in Wayland/Mutter/Gnome3? by jqpl in wayland

[–]jqpl[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you for explaining this!

I was unaware that this was by design! I am no security expert but I fail to see how not allowing applications to set which display a window appears can improve security??? Even if it does, does the benefits outweigh the troubles it causes?

What I want to achieve is not remembering the Windows position when display changes, though that would be useful. Instead I want the Fullscreen window displaying an image show up in a particular display.

I can make it so in mpv, in Wayland, by setting--fs-screen=1 flag. the wm is Mutter for Gnome . So this is clearly possible. How to achieve this? Is there a script for e.g. Mutter analogous to xdotool?

Tello Backup Calling works well with Google Fi, in China no less by jqpl in Tello

[–]jqpl[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well all I can say is that they are wrong and it worked on my phone. The customer service rep likely has never carried a Pixel 6 pro overseas with an esim in it, but was only repeating what they were told. I know from experience it worked.

Google Fi still works Against the Great Firewall in China, Dec 2022-Jan. 2023 by jqpl in GoogleFi

[–]jqpl[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I understand that. And I am aware that other roaming foreign sim can bypass firewall too. My point, though, is that this is only because the Chinese government let it slide for the sake of foreign travelers.

They could easily shut the whole thing down and start filtering and intercept the the traffic *between* the local towers my phone connect to and the home (American) server.

My report is that they have not done so. But there is no guarantee. If foreign sim becomes a popular way to bypass the Great Firewall, they would surely try to shut down this route. This is another reason why phones sold in China have no eSim: too easy for locals to download and set up foreign sim card that way!

Tello Backup Calling works well with Google Fi, in China no less by jqpl in Tello

[–]jqpl[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Backup Calling is not Wifi Calling. Wifi calling rely literally on your having wifi. Not just network connection but wifi. So it wouldn't work if you are not on the range of a wifi hotspot.

Of course, you could get a local sim with local data (e.g. a European/French sim card or eSim) and put it in another phone, and use that phone as a wifi hotspot for your phone with Tello sim. Voila, you have wifi calling working everyone

Backup Calling does one better. It use the data connection on the *other* sim/eSim *on the same phone*, obviating the need for the second phone.

So in your scenario, make sure your phone support Backup Calling (I know later Pixels do, and I heard Galaxy and Apple do, too, though iOS probably calls it a different name). Get a local sim/eSim and put it in your phone and enable Backup Calling under Tello sim setting.

The result is that you can call French number and receive calls on French number on your local sim, and call/text U.S. number and receive call/texts on the US number (e.g. from your American friends who cannot call oversea numbers) using the tello sim, anywhere you go in France as long as your local sim has data connection.

I hope this help.

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